General view of an old ruined temple at Panthia

Photograph of an old ruined temple at Panthia, taken by Henry Cousens between 1893 and 1894. Henry Cousens was a civil engineer who began working for the Archaeological Survey of India in 1875. By 1895 he was working as the Superintendent of the Western Circle and was responsible for the photographing and documenting of a vast number of sites for the survey. Throughout his career and especially in the early 1890s, Cousens organised and participated in extensive tours of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, the latter of which he visited particularly frequently. These tours led to the publication of a number of books for example, 'The Architectural Antiquities of Northern Gujarat, More Especially of the Districts Included in the Baroda State' and 'The Revised List of the Antiquarian Remains in the Bombay Presidency'. He retired in 1910 after almost thirty-five years service in India. Panthia is located in the modern state of Madhya Pradesh. The temple shown in this photograph houses a number of depictions of Vishnu.